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Thursday, May 14, 2015

It's all based on greed

The Residences of Vizcaya built their condo on Fairview at the old Hiawatha apartments. They received approval in 2006 and it took them years to complete the condo building. At the time in 2006, they were approved to build 3 townhouses, rather than the planned 5, after neighbors complained. Today there are five townhouses built or being built on West Glencoe Street.The knocked down a row of perfectly good houses for this. Why?

At the other end of the cul-de-sac neighborhood is East Glencoe, there are plans to develop a smaller condo there, making it into a larger condo.

Years ago, a beautiful mid-century house was knocked down on East Glencoe to make way for two huge townhouses with almost zero lot lines. Over the years, one owner bought them both and made it one huge place. It's so out of character for the neighborhood. A friend of mine told me that his mother lived in that mid-century house when it was new, so there was a personal history in the house for me and it was a beautiful house with a large lawn and it fit the old style Grove neighborhood. Now the double townhouse is all walled up with an ugly metal 10 foot gate, right on the edge of the sidewalk. I just noticed they are selling the property now, Riley Smith has the listing here.

In Charleston, SC, recently, a new building was rejected as being too high for the downtown area, it was to be 14 stories high and higher than some historic church steeples. That's what keeps people coming to Charleston, the history and pride in the city. I love the final quote of the article: “The applicants are wonderful community leaders in Charleston, and it’s difficult to say they can’t develop property according to their property rights because I’m a big supporter of that. ... But still, when you have this many people opposed to it, it’s not in harmony in keeping with the neighborhood.” This was said by one of the members of their Board of Architectural Review. Something like the Miami Planning and Zoning Appeals Board, only the board in Charleston respects the residents' feelings.It seems that every project that is built these days in Miami, is given a variation or spot zoning change. Why have laws if they are not adhered to?

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5 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Aren't variations & spot zoning part of the law you made reference to?

The thing is it's a done deal before we residents ever find out, so what can we do? There's a rumor that a Marriott will be built on the corner of Darwin St. and Lincoln. An apartment building was torn down. I have not been able to verify this. Would I protest? Yes.

The reason, Tom, is so that they can keep you from building, unless you bribe the proper city officials. Why do you think people keep taking this low and no pay jobs and appointments - people that have huge houses, expensive cars, kids in private schools, and huge bank accounts, but make very little income. hmmm. That is weird.

It's no longer envelopes of cash, it's a million dollar consulting agreement with politicians side company. It's obvious as hell, and we shouldn't take it anymore.

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